When the FBI came out Thursday with a few blurry
images and asked for "help" identifying the subjects,
they were asking Reddit.

Put more simply, they were asking the Internet to help them find
the suspects.

And the Internet answered: within a few hours of
the FBI's release of these images, the Reddit hive-mind produced
a
much clearer image of the suspected bomber.

Then, as if that weren't enough, Reddit
placed the suspected bomber in the same frame as 8 year-old
victim Martin Richard, with a bag that looked an awful lot like
the one the FBI was trying to identify.

So basically, in this grisly game of Clue, Reddit did the
FBI's job for them: all in one spot, killer, murder
weapon, victim, and the scene of the crime.

Now here's the kicker — the FBI is among the top groups lobbying
the government and
private web companies for more surveillance over the
internet, ie. CISPA, a bill which just passed the House, may pass
the Senate, and may cross Obama's desk.

As we've
covered before, CISPA "authorizes federal
agencies to conduct warrantless searches of information they
obtain from e-mail and Internet providers," as explained
by Declan McCullough of CNET.

Part of the reason for CISPA is that massive companies are
hemorrhaging proprietary information, through the likes of
hackers conducting cyber espionage. Some of these hackers are
state-sanctioned, others are
downright criminal.

It goes without mentioning that Redditors, and the Internet
cesspool dwellers on 4Chan,
hackers of all color, despise this piece of legislation.

Why? Because CISPA would unmask the Internet. Without anonymity,
without hacker handles, without online alter egos, there is no
image of Martin Richard next to the bomb and the bomber.

Because they can operate freely, without recourse, Anonymous and
Reddit and 4Chan can crowdsource information gathering. Stripping
them of their online identities though — essentially killing the
Internet hive mind — would remove the barrier under which these
folks operate.

They've proven that they can operate for ill, but their
operations for good match the ill
by tenfold — would they really have worked to restore
the internet to a Cairo in upheaval if they knew their own
governments could readily, personally identify them?

Even amongst the trolls, Internet dwellers as a single body, the
hive-mind, has an acute sense of justice and injustice.